The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-07-17
THE CITIZEN.
Some Things Which Destroy the Citizens
Usefulness and Threaten Our Nation.


Great riches and great poverty alike are dan
gerous to governments Much of the uneasi-
ness in Europe to day is due to grinding power
ty. Ignorance and poverty constitute q fruit
full soil for anarchy, nihilism, and the destruc-
tive spirit so manifest Whoever wishes to
promote good government must not osly advo-
cate intelligence. bat he must enable mon to
make comfortable living. The laoorer must
make more than just enough to keep soul and
body together, when he has been grinding seven
days in the week. Laws favoring the rich must
be met with laws equally favoring the poor.
Stock and grain gambling, watered stock, rail-
road wrecking. land grabbing and extortionate
usury all cause poverty. The poor man must
lose wages ON the wrecked railroad. II the mar
kets are "bulled up beyond what is natural,
the poor mans pittance is all the more strained.
The people see Jay Gould and others growing
immensely rich; they discover that this wealth
is gotten largely at the expense of the poor, and
they grow FESTIVE. They lose respect for the
law which allows such inequalities to exist
sentiment is thus created and fostered which
threatens disaster to loyalty.
The recent stock gambling in Chicago and Now
York, with the Fidelity bank failure. is calculated
to hatch whole brood of anarchists. NJ ore
stringent laws are required. This sort Of gam
bling ought to be made penal offense Disgrace
and punishment should follow the man who deals
in options, margins. corners, ETC., no matter
whether he labels the gambling a lard, grain.
coffee or s'three-card monte deal It is all OF
piece. evil In it's inception. dishonest In its
methods and disastrous in its results
Ben. Wade one time said, Tho rich can tske
of themselves" They need no moro hoer-
ties in this country just now. Two and onehai
per cent. of the people own SO per cent OF all
fA0 vnolf ~ hin aAtrnt W.
the other half.
This is true--that some will always be poor
and comparatively few will ever have great
wealth; but our laws so lax now that a few
men combine and grow immensely rich In
single corner of wheat. coffee, railway or tele-
graph stock. Values should be held steadier,
and if there such vast profits in these lines,
let the laborer who helps produce this wealth
have larger share of it in wages. This would
tend to better the condition of the poor, make
them more content and give them the means
with which to improve themselves and families,
thus making them better citizens.
Experience has proven that strict morality
never has and never can exist in community
where the very rich and the very poor both 1--we.
The disclosures made sometime since in London
are evidences of this state of affairs. A charge
was entered against one who belonged TO Eng
lands gentry, on May IL. 1876 for having pro-
cured within five months forty girls under the
age OF consent" and these were all the daugh-
ters of working men, some of them driven to
this from poverty, others led astray because
they had neither the intelligence nor morality
which would have BEEN possible had they been
endowed with enough Of this worlds goods to
have given them better advantages Not only
for the sake of the laboring man and his family
is there demand for some advanced legislation.
but also for the sake of our government as well.
The state is secure only when the people are In
telligent, content and moral
The liquor traffic is the worst enemy OF our
government. It possesses no virtue. 1t 10 I'M
moral in every phase. 1t is the author OF pow
erty and crime There is apology for the
saloon and its concomitants No man or woman
cd vuif6 4 hy,cin has NOR
to recognition. In this enlightened age they
should be treated criminals. The only won
der is that society will tolerate this malady this
nuisance. this crime. The traffic is being better
understood. It takes any reform years to ac-
complish the desired results We will note a few
facts CHANGING for q momensnt :; other co9 en-
them. will help us to understand what 1t will do
for u.s.
Statistics prove that enough of LIQUOR is con-
sumed in Germany to give each man, woman
and child about nine quarts yearly. or three
drinks per day. In Norway the people average
three quarts of whisky yearly: In France three
and one quarter quarts. In England five and
one third quarts. In Holland nearly nine quarts.
In Sweden nearly ten quarts. In Russia four
teen quarts and IN Denmark nearly sixteen
quarts. 1t should be remembered that beer and
kindred drinks not included. The total
amount of spurious liquors consumed in Ger
many yearly is about fourty-four millions of
gallons.
Now let me note the relation OF this drinking
to certain forms of crime The statistics in
France and Germany, in which the growth in
the of ardent spirits is wonderful, show tho
vital connection between drunkenness, crime
and insanity. Alcohol insanity in France is five
times greater than it was twenty years ago. In
1857. the number of drunken criminals per 100.-
600 in England was 402 in 1875 it had arisen to
S49. The present authorities in Germany give
it as their opinion that three-fourths of the
criminals under their care became such through
tbs influence of strong drink Of the male
patients in the Germany insane asylums %
per cent are drunkards. s.And one half the
If nprie is f0 "a has hnrIgo
In Prussia we find, in the eight old provinces.
that crimes increased in six years from SO, FOB
to 145 587; an increase of 65 per cent. Recently.
however 1t is held that there are signs OF i'm
provement In Prussia there is one criminal to
every 3 800 people. In ten years tho costs for
Furnishing legal ofenses have doubled In Sax
ony criminals increased 100 per cent. in
years. In Wurtemburg the number of con-
victed criminals increased 80 per cent from 1872
to 1877. Take our own Massachusetts. From
1860 TO 1879 crimes from drunkenness arose \
from 6, 1874 to over 16, 600. But studying those
countries where the most alcohol is in use, we
find a corresponding increase in the number of
suicides. Take Saxony, one of the worst drink
ing States in Germany. We find 1888 suicides
per annum to each million of people, while in
Ireland there are but Il. and in Scotland "a It
is well known fact that strong drink and pros
titution 60 hand in hand. Figures be given
connecting these two crimes until the whole
head would become sick. They are welded.
Passing over the waste side of strong drink,
figures here surely enough to starte every
business man and 70 make the blood of every
GOOD cltlZen burning not. one hundred ana
itty-three millions of bushels of grain is worse
than wasted in seven years in the United States,
an average of twenty-five million bushels per
year. Seventy-five million gallons of whisky
are made each year. and this is only one branch
of the traffic Notice what country loses in
q single year: The labor of 563 971 men engaged
in brewerles. distilleries and saloons, costing
over fifteen millions of dollars. Add to this the
lives of more than 1000 who go down to
drunkards graves per apnum, and then add to
this vast sum the loss Of health. and time and
and character which follows year by
year.
Ex-senator Window put It we'll on the Fourth
of July. in address which he gave at Wood
stock. Conn. We can do better than gather
together few of his figures. He stated that
New York has become pivotal state. The ga
looms rule the city, the city rules the State and
that State decides what shall be tho ruling
power of the Republic. Thus find the saloon
debating to this government who shall be its
rulers and what shall be its laws Organized crime
is the power which is attempting TO rule our Re-